


If You Don't Know What to Make of This (then we're on the same page)

by HollowIsTheWorld



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Drug Abuse, Gen, Suicide, a mashup of book/movie/head canons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-11-02 07:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20667863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HollowIsTheWorld/pseuds/HollowIsTheWorld
Summary: Forgetting is often not for the best.





	If You Don't Know What to Make of This (then we're on the same page)

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I am not kidding in the tags, this fic is not even in the general area of happy. You've been warned. 
> 
> References canon from the book and from the first movie. Not the second movie because I've been working on this fic for like two years and I haven't seen the second movie yet. Anything that seems to be Chapter Two canon-compliant is coincidental. The rest is personal headcanons. I have a lot of opinions and meta thought about the way the book ends and if you want more specific details on that than what you get here you can find me on [Tumblr](https://hollowistheworld.tumblr.com/)
> 
> The songs referenced in the title and at the beginning are Rivers and Roads by The Head and the Heart and Get Lonely by The Mountain Goats, respectively.

* * *

_ And I will go downtown _   
_ Stand in the shadows of the buildings _   
_ And button up my coat _   
_ Trying to stay strong, spirit willing _   
  
_ And I will come back home _   
_ Maybe call some friends _   
_ Maybe paint some pictures _   
_ It all depends _   
  
_ And I will get lonely _   
_ And gasp for air _   
_ And look up at the high windows _ _   
_And see your face up there

* * *

“You know, I never asked. How _ was _ Maine?” 

Richie looked up at his manager, his brow furrowing. “Maine?”

“That’s where you went a couple weeks ago, right? Maine? Or was it Massachusetts or something?” 

Richie blinked. “Oh. Right. Maine. It was… fine.” 

“Was that childhood promise worth all the fucking hassle?” Steve was smiling, but it was strained; he, at least, didn’t think it had been, and was still sore about Richie making him deal with it.

Richie’s gut twisted and sunk like a stone that had been dropped. “I think that depends on your point of view.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Just don’t do that again, Rich. You’ve used up your favors.” 

“No worries,” Richie agreed, though he suddenly had plenty of worries himself, “It wasn’t the sort of promise you can cash in twice.” 

What had the promise been though? And why did he feel so torn in half by the question _ was it worth it _?

He shook his head, trying to clear it. Steve would probably just about lose his mind if Richie admitted to the trip having been so uneventful that he could barely remember taking it. Richie was back, he had dealt with whatever it was that had so needed to be dealt with, and it wouldn’t happen again. Nothing else mattered. 

“Do you have any ibuprofen?” Richie asked. “I’ve got a hell of a headache building.” It was pressing behind his eyes, a dull sort of ache that made Richie think of the way his head felt on the rare occasions in his life where he had cried until he was out of tears. 

That wasn’t it this time, of course. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried that hard. When his mother had died, probably. This headache was probably from a lack of sleep, or the echo of a hangover. 

Steve handed over the bottle and Richie shook out four pills, dry swallowing them all at once. _ You shouldn’t take more than the recommended dose _, someone in his head reprimanded, but he couldn’t work out who the voice belonged to when he tried to chase it down. 

“You good for the show tonight?” Steve asked, and Richie didn’t miss the tone that said he’d _ damn well better be. _

“Fine.” He grinned, loose and easy. “Don'tcha worry about me none,” he drawled. 

Steve laughed and clapped his shoulder. “There’s my boy.”

The show was good. Of course the show was good. Richie could trot out his voices without a thought, he could do his show blindfolded and deaf with both hands behind his back. 

Which was fortunate, because his brain seemed to be ready for a shutdown. 

“Hey, Tozier!”

Richie turned around. _ Kids, _ he thought, and then felt old. They were college age, maybe older. “Hey, guys.”

One of them grinned, equal parts sheepish and confident. “Want to hang with us a bit?”

Richie did. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately - probably picked up some flu or something on the other end of the country - and any excuse to not go home to spend a couple of hours tossing and turning was a blessing. 

They started with weed in the parking lot. Richie pulled a bottle of expensive vodka out of the trunk of his car and passed it around. Next thing he knew, they were at a house Richie didn’t recognize and he was lifting his head from a line of coke. 

“You shouldn’t do that.”

Richie turned his head, his mouth already opening to inform the person that they were at the wrong party, but even his mouth was stopped at the sight of who it was. 

Sitting on the edge of a table that was piled high with cups and things, a ping-pong ball sailing easily over his head, feet swinging several inches off the ground, was a kid. A _ real _ kid, the underage, public school-goer variety. He was wearing red shorts and a t-shirt that looked maybe a little too big, brown hair neatly combed. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

The kid looked around as though he hadn’t realized where he was. “Same thing you are, I guess.”

Richie snorted, moving closer to the kid, brushing someone’s hand off his shoulder as they tried to ask where he was going. “You’re kinda young to need this much help to have fun.” 

The kid cocked his head. “_ This _ is how you have fun?” 

Richie shrugged, picking up a cup of beer from the kid’s side. “Closest I can ever seem to manage.” He leaned against the table. “Where are your parents?” 

Now it was the kid’s turn to shrug. “Dead, I guess. I mean, my mom. I’ve always known my dad was.” 

Richie frowned. “What’s your name?” 

“You don’t remember?” 

Richie stared at him, and he stared back out of sad, scared brown eyes. The world started tipping to the side until everything was at a slant and Richie had to grab the edge of the table to keep from feeling like he was going to slide all the way out of the house. 

“_ Dude! _” someone shouted, in a tone that suggested they’d been shouting for a while. 

Richie looked up at the voice and gasped like he’d spent the last few minutes holding his breath. 

“Dude. You okay, man?”

Richie looked back at the table, but the kid was gone. “Fine.”

The guy yelling at him wasn’t convinced. “Maybe you should call it a night. Want me to get you a cab?”

Richie scowled at him. “I can get my own fucking cab. Did you see a kid here?”

“A kid?”

“Yeah, a _ kid _ . The kind that gets his lunch money stolen. A _ kid. _”

“You’re high, man. There’s no kid here.”

“Like you’d notice.”

Richie pulled away, rubbing his forehead. His eyes hurt and his brain was fuzzy. _ Getting too old for this _, he thought to himself. He was supposed to be out of this phase, supposed to be settled down with a spouse, trying for kids 

_ (not that he could have any) _

his party days left behind him. That's what everybody else had done.

_ (Who was everybody else?) _

One of the girls he’d dated had told him it felt like he was waiting for a reason to grow up, and it wasn’t going to be her. 

Richie found his phone and called a cab. 

He wasn’t particularly present on the drive back home. He was forgetting something, he knew, but he couldn’t work out what. He had his wallet, his phone, his keys. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was _ something _ he was supposed to be bringing home with him that he hadn’t grabbed. 

_ “Come back with me,” Richie says. “You’d like L.A. You could use the sun. You’re all pasty, Eds.” _

_ He expects to be laughed off, for Eddie to hit his shoulder, or say ‘beep beep’, or roll his eyes. _

_ But Eddie’s quiet, looking down at their feet as they walk back to the hotel. “I’m married, you know.” _

_ “Do you love her?” _

_ “Maybe. Maybe like I loved my mother.” _

_ “Wow, Eds-” _

_ "Beep beep.” There’s no real emotion behind it. “I know, Richie. Believe me. That’s about all I’ve been thinking about since it started coming back. I was supposed to be better than…” He trails off, gesturing at himself. _

Richie stumbled out of the taxi, flipping the driver off after he recommended that Richie ‘sleep it off’. 

He managed to get to his bathroom, splash water on his face, and slipped out his contacts. He stood over the sink, breathing heavily. He’d probably mixed his substances a little too much tonight. It was fucking with him. 

“I almost didn’t recognize you without those coke bottles in front of your eyes.” 

Richie turned his head slowly. Another kid, different from the one at the party, was standing next to him along the sink, looking at his cupboards. This one was neatly dressed in khaki shorts and a red polo shirt, but with curly hair that didn’t look like it wanted to mind. 

“And who are you?” Richie asked with a resigned sigh, reaching for his glasses so he could find his way to his bedroom unscathed. “Or are you going to be cryptic like the last kid?” 

The kid looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “I’m Stan. Stanley. _ Stan the Man, _as you always used to call me.” He looked back at the mirror. “You got taller.” 

“Sorry, kid, you’ve got the wrong number. I don’t know any Stanley’s.” 

“So you _ were _ only friends with me so I’d buy you beer.” 

Richie blinked at him. “... I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but there’s no way you’re old enough to buy beer.” 

“I always thought so,” Stan agreed, “but if I’ve been around long enough to kill Christ I guess I must be wrong, you know?” 

“What the fuck…” Richie stopped, staring at the kid, whose face had started to bleed. He screwed his eyes shut, shaking his head, and when he opened his eyes again the kid was gone. 

“Okay, Tozier,” Richie muttered to himself, “time to stop partying so hard. You want to become one of those tabloid celebrities who O.D. in their bathroom?” Steve would probably piss on his grave. 

Richie made his way to his bedroom and landed face first in his pillow. He didn’t want to risk seeing any more 

_ (dead) _

kids. 

* * *

Richie managed to keep his promise to himself of staying clean for almost six months, a personal record. The first few days were shit, haunted with dreams of both kids - Stan and Eddie, they’d informed him - usually not doing much besides staring at him with eyes that made him think of war veterans. But the dreams had stopped within a week, there were no more hallucinations, and Richie finally stopped having his phantom headaches, so he chalked it all up to too many drugs in too old of a body and went on with his life. 

It’d have been fine, he imagined, if he hadn’t been so damn good at his job. 

Steve had called him up, announcing that he’d won some award 

_ (Richie didn’t care) _

and they were on their way up, boy, really on their way up now. Richie just had to show up, accept his award, wine and dine and party and jobs would just be _ falling into his lap _. 

Like he needed the money.

It was a big deal, Richie supposed. One of the Chrises was there and everything. He couldn’t remember which one. He couldn’t remember much of anything about that night and, if he was being honest, that was only barely because of the drugs. The party had just been eclipsed by what had _ followed _ the drugs. 

The memories from that night turned from blurs of colors to sharp and crystal clear halfway through a line of coke in the bathroom, someone whose name Richie couldn’t remember although his face felt familiar leaning against him and giggling helplessly, gasping for air around his laughs. Richie’s legs didn’t seem to be working so well and the extra weight wasn’t helping, so he slid to the floor, one hand above his head, uselessly holding onto the edge of the sink. 

“Are celebrity parties as cool as you always thought they were?” 

Richie looked up and then flinched away when he realized who had spoken. It was Eddie, looking exactly the same as he had the last time Richie had seen him. He was sitting cross-legged a few feet away, his chin propped on his fist, looking at Richie curiously. 

Richie groaned. “Go _ away _.” 

The guy who had been with him had gone to the floor too, and he looked up at Richie with offended confusion. “Jesus, dude, what the fuck?” 

“Not you. But you know what, you too. Go.” He shoved the man’s shoulder and the guy stumbled to his feet and left the bathroom in a huff. 

Eddie, however, didn’t move. 

“Beat it, kid. You’re too young for this kind of party.” 

“I’m too young for a lot of things,” Eddie told him, and that look in his eye that Richie had kept seeing in his nightmares was back. Like he’d been through a war. “Not many people seem to care.” He shivered, rubbing his arms. “Are you cold too?” 

Richie shook his head slowly. Something heavy was building in his chest, pushing on his lungs and closing up his throat. An apology was on his tongue, and Richie felt like if he said it he was going to break down into sobs. 

The trouble was he couldn’t figure out what the fuck he was sorry for. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t be wearing shorts in December,” he told the kid. 

“It’s May,” Eddie told him. Then he frowned. “Or maybe it’s August. They get mixed up a lot. It’s hard to tell the difference. But it’s _ summer _.” 

_ (If you say it’s summer one more f-f-f-fucking time…) _

“It’s really not, kid,” Richie said, but it came out weak. 

“Is _ Richie _ really telling _ you _ to put on a jacket?”

Stan had appeared too, standing beside Eddie, looking around the bathroom with a grossed out expression. He hadn’t walked in. He hadn’t been there, and then he was, between one blink and the next. 

Richie looked away from the two kids with a shuddering breath. They’d reliably shown up separately when he’d seen them in June, even in his nightmares. If they started ganging up on him his brain was going to snap. 

“I know, right?” Eddie said with a laugh. “Call the papers.” 

Richie rubbed his temples. He had a headache building, pressing against the back of his eyes. “You two are friends, are you?” 

They were quiet, and when Richie looked up to see why they weren’t answering they were staring at him, a little confused and a little sad. 

“Of course we are,” Eddie said. “We _ all _ are.” 

“You’re a Loser, Richie,” Stan said. It didn’t sound like an insult, and Richie could hear the capital L. 

Richie shook his head, trying to dislodge the sudden cacophony of voices between his ears. 

_ (Loser. Four-eyes. Trashmouth. Guess I’ve got a punchable face, since everyone’s always punching it. Mom, I swear, it’s not my fault that my glasses are broken again, I got pushed, you think I _ like _ walking around half blind?) _

“You two are haunting the wrong guy.” 

_ (Haunting?) _

“No,we’re not” Eddie said matter-of-factly. It was the politest argument Richie had ever heard. 

“Trashmouth Tozier is still Trashmouth Tozier,” Stan said, and one side of his mouth pulled up into a smile. “Even if you did finally learn to filter sometimes.” 

_ (“Way to go, banana-heels!” Biting his own tongue, clapping his hands over his mouth. His traitor mouth.) _

Richie got to his feet with considerable difficulty. “What do you two _ want _?”

They looked at each other, then back at Richie and shrugged. “We’re not _ trying _ to be here,” Eddie told him. “We just _ are _.”

“Then be here _ silently _ . Leave me _ alone _.” Richie fled the bathroom. 

The thing about hallucinations 

_ (ghosts?) _

however, was that they didn’t really care about things like the fact that you can’t just get into a taxi while it’s going seventy miles an hour down the freeway. Stan appeared in the passenger seat of the cab about five minutes after Richie left for home and he stayed there the whole drive, looking out the window with a dissatisfied expression. Richie tried not to watch him too much; the cab driver already looked like he was worried about whether or not Richie was stable.

When he got home, Eddie was sitting on his kitchen counter, staring absentmindedly out the window. Richie did his best to ignore both the boys and went to bed, eyes screwed shut, desperately trying to tell himself that this wasn’t really happening. Sleep was a struggle, and when it finally came it wasn’t restful.

_ “Have we done this before?” Eddie asks. He’s looking at their hands, his right holding Richie’s left. His back is against the wall, still a few doors down from Richie’s room. _

_ “I don’t think so.” Richie can’t take his eyes off of Eddie, committing every moment of this to memory. The feeling of Eddie’s hand in his, the sound of their breathing, the smell of Eddie’s cologne, and every detail of Eddie’s face and the way they’re looking at each other. “I wanted to. I remember wanting to. But I think we ran out of time.” _

_ “It took it from us.” _

_ Richie’s eyes drop to where he can see Eddie’s inhaler sticking out of his jacket pocket. He remembers Eddie throwing that away once. Talking about throwing it away? Something like that. Not needing it anymore, that much he knows. “It took a lot of things from us.” He bites his lip, more nervous than he would have expected. “We can get some of it back though.” _

_ He kisses him, and he can feel every moment he’s ever lived in celebrating at the contact. His thirteen year old self is strongest - as it has been since Mike called him - and it’s amazed that Eddie is allowing this, that Eddie is kissing him back, because this is _ Eddie _ , this is someone he’s wanted for so long that the idea of getting him feels like a fairytale. _

_ Eddie wraps his arms around Richie’s neck and doesn’t move even when they break the kiss, just stands there with his eyes half closed, breathing deeply. “This is a lot,” he says softly. _

_ “We can go slow,” Richie tells him, just as soft. “We have time now.” _

_ “Or we’ll be dead tomorrow.” _

_ “We’ll be on the same page either way. We can go as slow as you want.” _

Sometime between midnight and sunrise, Richie woke up sobbing, gasping for air, and with no concept of what he was crying about. It was dark in his room and he knocked his alarm clock to the floor with a clatter that suggested it was broken as he fumbled for the lamp. 

His room was not any more comforting with the light on. Eddie and Stan had not left; instead they were both slumped down near the door like they were sleeping on his floor - except for that their eyes were open and glassy and pools of blood surrounded them both. 

Eddie’s eyes snapped to Richie’s face, still dead and glassy looking. “I’m _ cold _ ,” he said, sounding confused about it. “And it’s _ dark _.” 

“You really don’t remember us?” Stan asked, sitting up a little straighter, staring at his bloody wrists. “I remembered you. I remembered all of you.” He shivered. “Not well enough though, I guess. I remembered It better.” 

“Get out!” Richie shouted. “Leave me alone.” 

Stan looked at him sadly, seemed to waver a little, and then he wasn’t there anymore. His blood was, but Richie could settle for that, for now.

Eddie tilted his head, looking sad and scared and confused. His eyes were still cloudy. “You said I could come back with you. You _ promised _.” 

Richie clapped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes. “_ Go away! _” 

When he opened his eyes both boys, and every trace of them, had left at last. Richie threw himself back against his pillow, heart pounding, and left the light on as he drifted off with exhaustion. 

* * *

Despite trying to tell himself that it had been a bad dream born of a bad trip, Richie found himself searching for the boys the next morning. Not out of fear of them surprising him, as he might have suspected, but out of a need for answers that was growing, twisting in his gut. He was having half-remembered dreams of someone named Eddie 

_ (god, it hurt to even think his name) _

and even though _ that _ Eddie was his age he felt certain it was the same one. And there was something _ important _ about both of the kids, something he needed to know, even if he didn’t want to. 

They were in his kitchen, looking in one of his open cabinets with disapproval. 

“I cannot _ believe _ ,” Stan was saying, “that _ Richie _ has healthy cereal.” 

“You get to a certain age and your taste buds and your stomach stop agreeing on things,” Richie said, feeling bizarrely like his dad for a minute. 

They turned to look at him and Richie was relieved to see that they looked human - no blood, no glassy eyes.

_ (no missing limbs) _

“I think I knew that,” Eddie said, and then he frowned. “Did I forget or something?” 

“There seem to be a lot of memory problems around here,” Richie said, fumbling to make himself a much needed cup of coffee. “Do you two remember your names?” 

“I’m Eddie. He’s Stan. You forgot again?” 

“No, I remember that part, Eds. Your last names. What are your last names?” 

Stan’s brow furrowed with thought. “I…” 

“It starts with a K,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “And it’s… sort of long? Longer than yours, I know that. At least, I think it was a K. Maybe a C that sounds like a K? There was an Eddie C...” 

“Mine’s a U,” Stan said. “And it’s Jewish. It’s…”

Richie remembered at the same second Stan did. 

“Uris. Stanley Uris. And Eddie Kaspbrak.” 

Eddie nodded, looking a little relieved. “Yeah. That was it.”

Richie took a long drink of his coffee and felt the caffeine starting to burn out some of the hangover and the after effects of the drugs from the night before. He closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling. 

When he opened them again, Stan and Eddie had vanished. 

* * *

Steve had learned years ago that scheduling shows for Richie the day after a big party was just asking for trouble, so Richie had what was left of the day to himself, and to try to figure out who these kids were, and why he couldn’t really convince himself they were just a hallucination. 

Stanley Uris gave a few results - a job listing from a twenty-something lawyer in Washington, an advertisement from an accountant in the Georgia area, an obituary for a forty year old in Atlanta - but no thirteen year old kid, and nothing that jogged anything in his mind. He kept looking over his shoulder, half expecting Stan to show up and point out which link - if any - was the correct one, but he never did. 

The top result for ‘Edward Kaspbrak’ was a missing person alert for a forty year old driver from New York, and Richie clicked on it, his stomach sinking with dread as he did so. 

The picture was of the guy he’d been having dreams about, and with time to study the face there was little way to argue - this was the full grown version of the kid that had taken to haunting his house. 

**Edward Kaspbrak was reported missing by his wife, Myra Kaspbrak, on June 3rd after not hearing from him since May 28th. Kaspbrak apparently received a phone call on the night of the 28th, and informed his wife he had important business to take care of and would be back in a few days. He was unspecific about the nature of the business, or exactly how long it would take him. **

**Police investigators have tracked Kaspbrak to Derry, Maine, which his wife has confirmed was his hometown. Shortly after Kaspbrak would have arrived, however, Derry suffered an extreme flash flood, destroying significant portions of the city. Given the timing, and the assurance of Myra Kaspbrak that is unlike her husband to go this long without contacting her, investigators believe it’s likely that Kaspbrak is one of the many flood victims in Derry. Any evidence either supporting or disproving this theory would be greatly appreciated by both police and Mrs. Kaspbrak. Mrs. Kaspbrak had offered a cash reward to anyone offering significant information. **

**Kaspbrak was the owner of a successful limousine company in New York City. None of his work connections have been able to offer any suggestions as to what business may have taken Kaspbrak to Derry, though many of them said it was unlike him to leave as quickly as he did, leaving more than a few customers in the lurch. **

Richie pulled back from the computer screen, thoughtful. Had he known that Derry had flooded? He couldn’t remember knowing, but he also didn’t feel surprised. And the date… he’d gone to Derry in May, hadn’t he? To keep the promise he couldn’t remember? 

He called Steve as he continued to dig through Eddie Kaspbrak’s life, looking for anything that might be a eureka moment. “Hey, Steve. When was I out of town?”

“What, like most recently?”

“No, a few months ago. When I went to Maine. What was the date for that?”

“Why?” 

“None of your damn business. I just need the dates.”

“You’re not planning on making it a yearly tradition are you?” 

“Don’t be a moron.” 

Steve grumbled at him but Richie was barely paying attention. “All right, Rich. You were gone May twenty-eighth to June fourth. “Happy?” 

He had been in Derry when it had flooded. And he’d left for Derry the same night Eddie Kaspbrak apparently had. “Thanks.” He hung up. 

He scrubbed his face with his hands. But what did that _ mean _? Did he know what had happened to Kaspbrak and that was why he kept seeing him? But why would he be seeing him as a kid? And why was he also seeing some kid named Stan Uris, who he had yet to find any connection to? What was wrong with his memory? 

Maybe _ they’d _ know. If Richie started asking them questions - really asking, instead of just demanding they get away from him - maybe they could fill in some of the gaps. They’d been able to give him their last names, after all. How hard could a few more questions be? 

The trouble was that he couldn’t exactly call them up on the phone. They’d disappeared with his coffee that morning and had yet to reappear. 

He set that problem on the shelf for a bit and went hunting for a notebook. If he’d already forgotten all of this once he didn’t want to forget it all again. 

By the time he was done writing his hand was cramping. He flipped back through his notes - it felt like he’d written them half possessed. 

Most of the notes he could follow. The names of the two boys and what information he’d been able to get out of them or find - Stan was Jewish, Eddie had been a driver, had been married to a woman named Myra, and so on. 

But some of his notes… 

_ Eddie - never gets lost _

_ Stan - only one who ever bothers with the kickstand on his bike _

_ Eddie - only thinks he has asthma (Sonia was a bitch) _

_ Stan - likes bird watching _

He couldn’t remember writing any of that, and he didn’t know how he could possibly know it, but he _ knew _ it. He was certain he was right. More than certain. 

He shivered and looked around, half hoping to find one of the boys sprawled out on his couch or raiding his cupboards. 

His house was as empty as ever. 

He would have to find a way to summon them. He needed answers and he needed… He wasn’t exactly sure. He only knew that thinking about them made something twist around inside him. Something painful and heavy. 

_ (Lying by his door in pools of blood. “I’m cold. And it’s dark. Rich, you promised I could come with you.”) _

Richie searched for Stanley Uris again, this time with ‘May 28th’ alongside it. 

The first result was the obituary for the accountant in Atlanta. Richie clicked it, biting his lip hard enough to hurt. 

Stanley Uris, it seemed, had slit his wrists in the bathroom the night of the twenty-eighth, after getting a phone call. No one knew who’d he talked to and no one could think of a reason for him to have killed himself. And his hometown was Derry, Maine. 

Richie rubbed his eyes. Something was desperately wrong. And desperately _ weird _ as well. What the hell had he been doing in Maine, that he couldn’t remember it now? How had he just _ forgotten _ that the place had flooded, apparently with him there? That wasn’t the sort of thing people forgot about, no matter how many drugs they took or how much alcohol they drank. 

The boys knew. Richie _ knew _ they knew. He didn’t seem to know much, but he was confident about that. He didn’t know who they were, how he knew them, or why they were haunting him as kids when they’d died in their thirties, but he knew they were the way to answers. 

If he could just figure out how to get in touch with them. 

He stumbled through the day with a lot of useless internet searches and a lot of sudden thoughts that he couldn’t quite hold onto once they’d slipped away. 

Stanley had slit his wrists. He’d been looking at his wrists, hadn’t he? While he’d been lying on the floor, bloody and dead? That had to mean something. 

Why hadn’t Richie kept his old yearbooks? Maybe those would have held answers. Or even clues. Richie would have settled for a few more clues. 

Night fell and Richie fell into bed, less because he was exhausted and more because he had nothing else to do with his time. Maybe in the morning something else would make sense. 

Or maybe sleeping would provide some more clues. 

Richie wasn’t willing to say if he was asleep and dreaming, or sitting up in the darkness of his room. Everything felt like an odd mix of awake and asleep

_ (living and dead) _

and there just didn’t seem to be a lot of point in distinguishing between the two. 

The important thing was that Eddie was sitting on the edge of the bed, one leg tucked up under him, the other dangling above the floor. He was small. He’d always been small, hadn’t he?

_ (T _ _ oo many meds, Eds, they’re stunting your growth.) _

“I like your place, Richie,” Eddie said quietly. He sounded so _ sad _. “It’d have been nice to come back here.” 

Eddie was… _ flickering _. A thirteen year old kid, a thirty-eight year old man. Richie’s heart ached so bad that, if he’d been less focused on his ghost problem, he might have considered calling an ambulance. 

“Why would you have come back here?” Richie asked quietly.

(_ You said I could come back with you, Richie. You promised _.) 

Eddie looked up at him, eyes wounded, and it was like a knife through Richie’s chest. “You… You said I could.” 

“I don’t remember you. Why did I…? Did I say that in Derry? This summer?” 

_ (Eddie kept saying it was summer, didn’t he? It had been summer when he’d died… But then why did he keep saying he was cold?) _

“Yeah. Derry.” There was a far-away look in Eddie’s eyes. Richie thought he could see something reflected in them, but he couldn’t put his finger on what the something was. It looked so familiar though… A house? A well? A cave? “When we went back to Derry.” He shivered so hard that the bed shook, and Richie thought his bones were going to rattle out of his skin with the force of it. “We shouldn’t have gone back, Richie. We should have stayed at home. Like Stan did.” 

And just like that, there was Stanley. He was sitting on the other side of the bed, his back across from Eddie’s, blood trickling down from his arms, from his face. 

“It was better,” Stan said. His voice was flat, emotionless, 

_ (dead) _

and his eyes were staring at some spot on the floor. Or staring beyond it, into that well, that house. “Better to die in my house than that one. What were you guys thinking? It was a miracle we came out of that house the first time. No one gets a miracle twice.” His tone never changed. His eyes never wavered, never blinked. 

“What house?” Richie asked, and he could feel the answer pressing against his tongue, stirring up from his memories. 

“The house on Neibolt Street.” Both ghosts spoke at once, lifting their heads from the floor to the wall, mirrors of one another, and Richie could see the house between them, old black walls sagging, the door swinging in it’s frame, an open mouth waiting for them, and they slid down its throat without hesitating, without pausing, and-

Richie’s breath caught in his throat painfully, like he’d just cut off a scream. 

_ Eddie never made it out of that house. _

Richie saw blood smeared across his vision, like it was dripping down his face and into his eyes. He jerked an arm up, trying to wipe it away, rubbing his eyes hard enough to hurt. His heart was pounding painfully, he could _ feel _ his blood coursing through his veins, too fast, too hard, too _ much _. 

When his vision finally cleared and he could see again, Eddie and Stan were gone. Richie got out of bed and checked through his apartment, room by room, calling their names, but they didn’t reappear. He returned to bed at last, but he didn’t sleep, just sat up against his pillows, trying to grasp at memories that danced away from his thoughts. 

Unconnected - seemingly unconnected - fragments floated at him from deep in his subconscious, but none of them made any sense. 

_ What do you suppose made us forget? It or the turtle? _

_ The turtle couldn’t help us. _

_ Promise we’ll come back. _

_ Come join us, Richie, we all float down here, we all float down here, we all float- _

Richie supposed he must have fallen asleep again eventually because he was pretty sure he’d woken up. But maybe he’d just been deep in thought. 

He _ had _ to talk to Eddie and Stan again. He needed answers. And he needed to… he wasn’t even sure. But they were dead. Ghosts. He had _ ghosts _ . The ghosts of two boys who had once been his best friends and who he could now barely remember. Bits and pieces were coming back, old inside jokes, a few events - they’d built a dam together once, he thought - but it was all disjointed, and none of it felt properly important. None of it explained why they couldn’t seem to stop _ dying _. He had to help them. 

But he still didn’t know how to make them show up so he could talk to them. He’d gone six whole months without seeing them, and he didn’t think he could go that long without seeing them again. He felt like it would kill him. The questions and the guilt and the constant wondering if he had actually gone crazy after too many drug-filled late nights-

That was it. He hadn’t seen them for the six months he’d kept himself clean. He _ needed _ the drugs. Without them Stan and Eddie couldn’t get through. 

Richie scrambled for his phone, hitting a dozen wrong buttons in his haste to find his old drug contacts. The nice thing about drug dealers was that they never minded if you’d stopped employing their services for a while. Even if they’d gotten themselves clean - always deeply unlikely - they were probably still more than happy to help you keep slowly killing yourself. 

Or, you know, make contact with the dead kids that were haunting you because you’d somehow failed them. Richie figured he’d leave that out of the conversation. Even drug addicts had a limit. 

He was sure he’d failed Eddie and Stan somehow though. Why else would they be haunting him? And he felt a heavy knot of guilt in his stomach when he thought about their deaths. Whatever had happened to them, it was buried in those missing days in Derry, he was sure of it. Hell, maybe that was _ why _ he’d buried those memories. Stan had died at home in Georgia, but Eddie had died in Derry, and Richie couldn’t believe that was an accident. 

_ “I’m cold. And it’s dark.” _ That was Richie’s fault. He could _ feel _ it, down in his bones. Eddie was cold and in the dark and he couldn’t get himself out of it without Richie’s help because it was Richie’s fault he’d ended up like that in the first place. 

Well, Richie Tozier knew he had a lot of faults, but one of them was not that he’d be content to let a friend suffer just to save himself some grief. If Stan and Eddie needed his help, he’d help. 

Richie shot himself up in the bathroom with more difficulty than he remembered having in the past. He must have been out of practice. But drug use was ultimately like riding a bicycle 

_ (Hi-ho, Silver!) _

and it didn’t take long for his head to tip backwards and thump against the tile walls. 

“You really do look like shit, you know that, right?” 

Richie grinned up at Stan. “Well, maybe if you left your number I wouldn’t have to resort to this shit.”

“I hate talking to you over the phone. You always do your stupid voices.” 

“My voices are _ great _.” Richie held up his tied-off arm. “My voices are paying for our call.” This struck him as incredibly funny, and he laughed to himself for a few minutes, shaking and having to make a conscious effort not to brain himself against the wall. 

When he finally recovered and looked up again, Eddie had joined Stan and they were both watching him judgmentally. 

“You’re not as funny as you think you are, Rich,” Eddie told him. 

“Eh, what do you know, Eds? Your mother killed your sense of humor in the womb.” Richie struggled to sit up and face them properly. They were cross-legged on the floor. “So, what are you two _ doing _ here? What can I… I mean. You’re dead. And I can feel that it’s my fault, even if I can’t remember why, so there’s got to be something I can do, right?” 

Eddie gave a sad smile. (_You said I could come back with you, Richie. You promised_.) “Last time I checked, you were a bad comedian. Not a necromancer.” 

“Yeah, but there’s, like, some light for you guys to go into, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Stan agreed. “There’s light.” 

“Okay. See, now we’re getting somewhere, thank you, Stanley. See how he’s being helpful, Eds? You should try that. How do I help you two go into it?” 

Eddie and Stan looked at each other. It was eerie, how similar their motions were, mirrors of one another despite the difference in size and appearance. 

“You want us to go into the light?” Stan asked. He looked suddenly far away, his eyes blank and staring into the distance. He looked very _ dead _. Richie wasn’t sure what made him think so. It wasn’t like Stan’s skin had begun rotting, or his face had started bleeding again. He just looked empty, hollowed out, like the soul that made him alive had flickered out for a moment. 

Only a moment though. He snapped back to himself, something Richie was starting to consider normal, like Stan wasn’t a goddamn ghost kid. It was probably a dead person thing, Richie figured. Really, if he thought about it, it didn’t make any sense that a ghost would always look alive. 

“Yeah,” Richie said. “Seems like the least I can do, right? I mean, you do want to go into the light, don’t you? It looks like a good place to be?” 

“We want to go into the light,” Eddie confirmed, his voice dreamy. “We’ve seen the light. It’s beautiful. If we’re there, we’ll… float.” 

Eddie smiled but Richie’s stomach dropped. His breath caught in his throat for a moment. 

“You okay, Rich?” Stan asked, tilting his head. 

Rich shook himself. His arms felt far, far away. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” The moment of inexplicable fear was already fading. “Anxiety. Side effect of drugs.” 

Eddie frowned. “Then why do people take them to deal with anxiety?”

“Because we’re a nonsensical species, Eds. So. Light. Floating. How come you can’t get there?” 

“We need help,” Stan said, fixing Richie with a serious stare. It seemed to have been a very long time since he’d blinked. Not, Richie thought, that ghosts were likely to _ need _ to blink. “We can’t go without you, Richie.” 

“Because of what happened in Derry,” Eddie added, just as serious. They were mirroring one another again, sitting side-by-side, hands on their knees, watching him. 

“Because I made it out,” Richie said. He still couldn’t remember just what had happened in Derry, but it felt right. He’d made it out of whatever had happened there, and they hadn’t. It seemed only right for the survivor to help the dead move on. 

_ You said I could come back with you, Richie. You promised _.

Well, it was too late to bring Eddie back to Los Angeles with him - too late to bring him back _ alive _, at any rate - but he could at least take him somewhere else. Somewhere he could… rest, Richie supposed. That was what the dead were supposed to, wasn’t it? Rest? 

Eddie and Stan nodded. “Because you made it out.” Richie didn’t quite catch which of them said it, but it didn’t really matter. 

“How do I get you there?” 

“You just have to be able to see it,” Stan said. 

“Once you see it, it’ll be easy,” Eddie continued. 

“You just have to do a little more of… whatever you’re doing that’s letting us talk to you.” 

“Just a little more, Rich. Then you’ll see the lights. And we can float.” 

Richie’s stomach roiled a little. Nausea - another risk of too many drugs at his age. He tipped his head back. It felt like it weighed as much as a bowling ball. There was another needle sitting on the bathroom counter, just within reach. 

He couldn’t quite remember pulling it down, but it was in his hand, and then it was in his arm, and then… 

There were the lights. Glowing and swirling and talking. Eddie and Stan were smiling, grinning, not at the lights, but at _ him. _Their teeth seemed to be sharper than before. 

And then Eddie and Stan weren’t there at all, there was a bright red balloon that seemed to be mocking him, there was circus music playing from a hundred miles away, echoing off the bathroom walls, and there was laughing, that damn laughing. 

By the time Richie thought to scream he didn’t have a mouth anymore. 

* * *

**Stand-up comedian Richard ‘Richie’ Tozier was found dead at his home in Los Angeles, California Tuesday morning after his manager became concerned about being unable to contact him and reached out to the police. Tozier was forty-one years old. While autopsy results are still pending, the cause of death is suspected to be a heroin overdose. Tozier’s manager has confirmed that the comedian has struggled with drug abuse in the past, though he’d believed he’d gotten clean. It is unknown if the overdose was accidental or intentional. **

**Richard Tozier was born in Derry, Maine, on March 7th, 1976, to Wentworth and Maggie Tozier. He was an only child, unmarried, and predeceased by both parents. His manager intends to take care of all funeral and memorial services. No word has yet been released as to if there will be a service intended for fans to be able to say goodbye to the popular entertainer.**


End file.
